20 links on search and design

I compiled another quick list of links this week, but you might want to read them fast, because as Kid Mercury noted almost a week ago, On April 11, The Internet Gets Destroyed (No longer available)

OK, it might not be demolished, but it may just be broken in a number of places after Microsoft issues a new patch that treats some HTML tags involving embedded objects differently, instead of paying licensing fees for the technology.

Search Engines

Google Buys Search Algorithm Invented by Israeli Student
Ori Alon (or Allon), an Israeli student, who has been studying in at the University of New South Wales in Australia, appears to now be working in Google’s Mountain View offices. After a press release in September of last year, it appears that Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google were all seeking this software, which finds links to related resources, based upon text found on a page from a query on a specific subject.

The Spyware – Click-Fraud Connection — and Yahoo’s Role Revisited
Ben Edelman has had a hand in some of the most interesting research involving search engines and spyware over the past few years, on topics such as censorship in China, Saudi Arabia, France, and Germany, and more recently on spyware issues. If you pay for ads on a search engine, this is an article that you should check out.

Interviews

A Frank Interview with Gary Flake
Some nice discussion here. Gary Flake answered a good number of questions about how MSN works, and what he likes and dislikes about the search service. I’d really like to see a part two.

Lowdown with Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld
In the only chance I’ve had to talk with him, I got to spend about three minutes with Brett Tabke discusing PDAs in the lobby of the New York Hilton a couple of years back. He has a lot more to say in this interview with Lee Odden.

The tail wags the dog…
Some reporting tools make suggestions on how to improve your pages. As Howard Kaplan notes here, reporting is easy, but analysis is hard. You shouldn’t let your reporting tools also provide your analysis for you.

SocialNets & The Power of The URL
Robert Young looks at the growth of consumer control over URLs, and what it means to businesses, as well as the role of adsense in powering this consumer created media.

Wikipedia and Link Spammers – A “How-to” Guide (dead link)
Peter T Davis provides a tongue-in-cheek look at how to get links to your pages from wikipedia.

Visual Retrieval Experiment
If you have 15 – 20 minutes, and would like to participate in Mauro Cherubini’s experiment on Visual Information Retrieval for his thesis work, I’m sure that he would be appreciative. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m planning on doing so in the morning.

Internet Archive Sued for Copyright Infringement
Is the Internet Archive legal, or is it copyright infringement? I’m having a difficult time understanding the legal argument being made by plaintiff’s lawyer in this case. I wonder of the complaint that was filed will make it any clearer.

I have about 500 or so feeds that I try to follow over the course of a week, plus Technorati, and some other Web 2.0 aggregation services. Most of the blogs in my blogroll are amongst those feeds.

Thanks, Marcus. I’m finding that I’m learning a lot by revisiting posts, and trying to write something about them. I’ll be experimenting with formats and titles, but I will be adding this type of weekly roundup as a regular feature here. Appreciate the vote of approval.

Thanks for the mention, Bill. Yes, I will be maintaining the “1 simple thing a day” concept. I have a list of over 300 things at this point, so if I am not inspired on a given day, all I gotta do is grab one off the stack.